2015 Downeast Inaugural Cruise

Sailing Flanders Bay

After over a week of admiring Second Windat anchor (which I rather enjoyed) I finally got the opportunity last Friday to take her out for a few hours of sailing on Flanders Bay.

Why did I wait for over a week? Each day had a different reason. Weather was a common issue. Sometimes there was no wind. Sometimes is there was too much or it was raining. I wanted to enjoy my first cruise on the bay. Yes, that makes me a "fair weather sailor." Ya wanna make somethin' of it?

Other days had errands to run: visiting family in Bangor, visiting a doctor near Portland, or getting the trailer wheels fixed. Sometimes, I just wanted to enjoy the quiet solitude of the day with a book or my journal.

Yes, I could have solitude on Second Wind, but, unless she is lying at anchor, it wouldn't be quiet. When she is under way, she demands attention, even with the autopilot doing the steering. I must keep a lookout for other vessels (mostly lobster boats), steer clear of anchored boats and other obstacles, and pay constant attention to the risk of fouling the daggerboard or rudder on a lobster buoy. I love the challenges of sailing in these waters, but I do not seek quiet solitude until Second Wind is safely riding on her anchor. Even then, there is usually work to do: put away the sails, raise the daggerboard and rudder before the tide gets too low, tidy up the cabin, and set the jibs to dry out as best they can.

I'm getting back into the rhythm of sailing Second Wind in these waters.

• What equipment should I bring with me to the boat?
• What path should I blaze carrying the kayak down to the water's edge?
• What consumables will I need?
• Can I leave the bimini top up, or should I lower it and secure it?
• How can release mooring line from the cockpit while under sail?
• Which jib should I use?
• Are the halyards and topping lift all running free?
• Are the jib sheets rigged?

For this first cruise, I found that I had forgotten to rig the topping lift when I rigged the boom, and the topping lift was not passed around to the correct side of the shrouds. It was even wrapped around one of the halyards. When I had rigged the boom at the boatyard, I had connected the jib halyard to the head of the mainsail. While fixing that, it appeared that the jib halyard would work better at the top of the forestay of I swapped the working end for the lazy end.

I also rigged a "toggle float" on the mooring line to make it easier to pick up the mooring on my return. This small float, the type used by lobstermen to lift the middle of the trap lines so they wouldn't foul on rocks at low tide, would hold the end of my mooring line about three feet from the mooring buoy. I could sail up close, reach down with a boat hook and grab that three-foot section of mooring line or catch the bowline loop riding on the end of the toggle float, then quickly hook a docking to that bowline loop and drop it all back into the water, coming to rest riding to the dock line, in turn securely fastened to the mooring line. That's the theory, anyway.

All this fussing with the boat took a couple of hours before I was happy with it. Most of that was just figuring out how to best release the mooring line from the cockpit while under sail.

I had considered how to use a dock line as an extension of the anchor rode, grab the dock line with a boat hook and pass the knot along the hull to the cockpit, untie it, and be on our way. But would mean riding to the anchor for several minutes from a point abaft the mast while the mainsail was up. The mainsail would fill while the pull of the mooring line would keep the after quarter of the boat toward the wind. That wouldn't end well.

Finally, I hit upon the idea of tying the dock line from the foredeck cleat to the bowline loop at the end of the anchor rode with a simple slippery hitch. Yes, the knot was slippery and not to be trusted out of my sight. But once I was ready to hoist sails, I first tied slippery hitch and ran the tail of the dockline, the "quick release", back to the cockpit. Then I raised the mainsail, then the jib, and waited for the boat, swinging to it's anchor, point more in the direction I wanted to travel: south, away from the beach.

I found that I could influence the speed of that swing by backing the mainsail against the wind. Once Second Wind started to swing to starboard I gave the mooring release line a good yank and we slowly turned away from the mooring buoy and picked up a little speed. Once I got the boat turned a good 50 or 60 degrees away from the wind, I could sheet the sails home and pick up good speed to about four or
five knots. That's just about as fast as she ever goes.

Three long tacks later, I had worked to windward enough the I could set a course toward the Gouldsboro cell tower and clear Schieffelin Point. I took a break and let Ray (my Raymarine autopilot) do the steering.

In my next installment, I plan to talk about jib changes and my anticipation for figuring out how to reef my Genoa jib.